Definition of Damage Indices for Railway Axle Bearings: Results of Long-Lasting Tests

The European Rail Transport System has set goals of improving the reliability, availability, durability, high-speed capacity, and maintenance. In this context, the condition monitoring approach is of fundamental importance for all components of the “train” system. The authors have long been in the diagnostics of the railway traction system, with a focus on rolling element bearings. In this paper, signal processing techniques, already developed in the past and experimentally validated in the railway field, are applied to vibration data for the definition of damage indices for railway axle bearings. This allows to evaluate the “status” of the bearing and the monitoring of the evolution of any damage that may occur. The experimental data were obtained by means of a test-rig built according to EN 12082:2017 and following the test specifications of the same standard.